Posted
by
samzenpuson Monday May 14, 2012 @12:35PM
from the let-me-give-you-a-hand dept.

MrSeb writes "A group of American researchers from MIT, Indiana University, and Tufts University, led by Erin Treacy Solovey, have developed Brainput — a system that can detect when your brain is trying to multitask, and offload some of that workload to a computer. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which is basically a portable, poor man's version of fMRI, Brainput measures the activity of your brain. This data is analyzed, and if Brainput detects that you're multitasking, the software kicks in and helps you out. In the case of the Brainput research paper (PDF), Solovey and her team set up a maze with two remotely controlled robots. The operator, equipped with fNIRS headgear, has to navigate both robots through the maze simultaneously, constantly switching back and forth between them. When Brainput detects that the driver is multitasking, it tells the robots to use their own sensors to help with navigation. Overall, with Brainput turned on, operator performance improved — and yet they didn't generally notice that the robots were partially autonomous. Moving forward, Solovey wants to investigate other cognitive states that can be reliably detected using fNIRS. Imagine a computer that increases the size of buttons and text when you're tired, or a video game that slows down when you're stressed. Your Xbox might detect that you're in the mood for fighting games, and change its splash screen accordingly. Eventually, computer interfaces might completely remold themselves to your mental state."

Considering how much more capable even an average person's brain is than any computer we can build today, this is a bit silly. Enhancing the brain by waking some of the ~90% which is unused would almost certainly yield more practical results.
Consider the numerous, very complicated instructions the brain is able to run just to walk, ride a bike, or breathe. If we can gain conscious control over that kind of functionality, we'd be formidable.

I think it got twisted to "we only use 10% of our brains" when the original probably was "we only know the function of 10% of a human brain, we don't know what the rest does". And we're seeing the repeat of the same phenomenon with the DNA fragments that we don't understand yet.

Even NDT succumbed to this notion when he asked Dawkins, [something along the lines] "If human and chimp DNA differ by only 1.5%, imagine how much advances we can make if we improved by another 1.5% in same direction". Dawkins respon

The "We use ~10% of our brain" statement is true for any specific moment in time.A fraction of a second later you'll be using a different 10% though.So over a period of time, you'll use most of your brain.

I'm not using the sarcastic comment section of my brain right now. You're soooooo lucky. Hmmm... Still can't think of any sarcasm. Thinking of Boobs again. That's got to be more than 10%. Superman Vs boobs?(13%) Hmmm. Must do some work (0.05%)... Battery screen time drain (65%)

The human brain is a neural network that provides ample resources to ponder any concept one may choose to contemplate to a much higher degree than any other animal. Unless someone is claiming they are simultaneously contemplating more than 10% of all the concepts mankind can possibly conceive of the entire universe, the notion that we can use 10% of our brains at once is actually a staggeringly high number.

Here's a figure that's much harder to explain: the human brain uses 20W of power at all times. Calcu

But somebody proved that your brain actually overclocks when you are in a stressful situation. They took a LED display, had it flicker between two states at 30Hz. Normally, these would be indistinguishable to anyone in relaxed situations. Then they had the volunteers experience a sudden shock (sliding down one of those fairground attractions. If time really slowed down, the volunteers would be able to read the LED display.

But somebody proved that your brain actually overclocks when you are in a stressful situation. They took a LED display, had it flicker between two states at 30Hz. Normally, these would be indistinguishable to anyone in relaxed situations. Then they had the volunteers experience a sudden shock (sliding down one of those fairground attractions. If time really slowed down, the volunteers would be able to read the LED display.

Considering how much more capable even an average person's brain is than any computer we can build today, this is a bit silly.

The average person is also "more capable" than a tanker truck, but I know which one I'd prefer if I needed to move 5,000 gallons of liquid across the state.

Enhancing the brain by waking some of the ~90% which is unused would almost certainly yield more practical results.

Which 90% would that be?

Consider the numerous, very complicated instructions the brain is able to run just to walk, ride a bike, or breathe. If we can gain conscious control over that kind of functionality, we'd be formidable.

If you gained conscious control over that particular functionality, you'd probably die in short order. Especially if you were trying to multitask.

There are a lot of things that the brain does very well. There are a lot of things the brain presently does better than any computer -- but that list is getting shorter every day. More to the point, computer capabilities are improving much faster than human capabilities. TFA suggests one way to take advantage of this.

There is actually conscious control over breathing- it just isn't required. Otherwise half the meditation techniques in the world wouldn't work because we would always have the same resting rate for breathing (excluding changes from exercise and other factors).

Our pattern recognition abilities are still better than computers, although the gap is closing. Much of our pattern recognition capabilities are not conscious but can be utilized anyway.

I think most people mean the 90% we "don't use" is part of our mind that is not conscious. That's pretty accurate in a way.

There's a good BBC Horizon episode called "Out ofControl" How Big is the Unconscious Mind? It gives some awesome examples of harnessing the power of our unconscious mind.

One intriguing example is using a person wired up to measure brain response to identify objects of interest to the military in satelite imagery. These are very high resolution images and take a long time to analyze using normal means. But you can use the pattern recognition powers of the unconscious mind to speed up the process without compromising accuracy. One image is cut up into many smaller images and these are then shown in rapid sucession to the analyst. Some images trigger neural patterns which are associated with interest, object recognition and so on. These images are then set aside and further analyzed using traditional methods including brute force human scanning of the images. Accuracy stays good and output is increased.

Oh yeh... a weird thing about breathing is that it's the only autonomic function that is fully wired with somatic nervous control too. Our breath works unconsciously but unlike other autonomic functions like heartbeat and so on it can be consciously controlled without lots of practice. This can be used to practicle advantage. By using the breath as an object of attention during meditation and by consciously controlling our breathing we can help to reprogram the autonomic functions of our bodies. This happens because both sets of nerves are firing together (the somatic and the autonomic) so the autonomic system is trained too.

One intriguing example is using a person wired up to measure brain response to identify objects of interest to the military in satelite imagery. These are very high resolution images and take a long time to analyze using normal means. But you can use the pattern recognition powers of the unconscious mind to speed up the process without compromising accuracy. One image is cut up into many smaller images and these are then shown in rapid sucession to the analyst. Some images trigger neural patterns which are associated with interest, object recognition and so on. These images are then set aside and further analyzed using traditional methods including brute force human scanning of the images. Accuracy stays good and output is increased.

...until the surveillance targets find out, and start papering the landscape with centerfold pictures as decoys.

Maybe if we leave the brain stem (the part that is the life support in humans) alone and look at the 'higher' brain functions. It might hold some truth. Perhaps that is where the 10% part came from. There are many people who (at a young age) lost major parts of their brains. They lead active lives when they got older. The people who lost half of their brain are not 100%, but they can do most things just fine. The people who lost less do better. I am talking about young people here. Infants and people under

Most things, not all things. Certainly less than someone with 100% of their brain. If they were using less than 100% of their brains, there should be some part we could just cut out, with no ill effects. However, overwhelmingly, if you cut out any part of someone's brain, they do not take it well.

The issue at hand is that actual Multitasking is not one of the things that we do well (or even can do as far as all vetted research shows). Specifically with multitasking, if the program can detect when a user is attempting to do this and to send instructions to speed things along to the secondary entities you are attempting to manipulate, it could increase efficiency.

Considering how much more capable even an average person's brain is than any computer we can build today, this is a bit silly. Enhancing the brain by waking some of the ~90% which is unused...

Anyone who ever even believed that myth for a minute isn't qualified to judge what is or isn't silly with regards to cognition. (For the record, you use 100% of your brain. You use 30% alone for the initial processing of the image coming in from your eye, and that's not counting anything like recognizing shapes or the like, that's simply forming the picture.

this is not true, read "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman.
There are experiments that show that quality of human thinking degrades very quickly when multitasking. Therefore some system that can detect such situation would be very good for activities that require long attention span and are prone to interruptions.

There are 2 types of human multitaskers out there, those who suck horribly at multitasking and those who KNOW they suck horribly at multitasking. It is entirely believable that offloading simple things to avoid multitasking could vastly improve human performance.

"people will retain a sense of individuality and personality" only for as long it takes a cybor-multibillionare how to take over the world. The Singularity WILL BE EVIL if only because the people that will eventually pay to develop it are inherently evil.

That's one way, except that it causes cancer.Going out for a run would be a better alternative. Once it feels like you're going to tar the trail with your lungs you don't want a cigarette any more.And the nicotine addiction goes away after a while - as opposed to your sex drive.

The fact is you are substituting the urge for sexual release with sexual release. Regardless of whether or not it's with a partner, it's still satiating the desire. To those claiming masturbation gives them control over the urge, have them abstain from masturbation and they will realize it has only enforced the drive, not delivered them from it.

If systems oriented to our state were available, it doesn't really provide as much opportunity for growth. If its always oriented to what we know and want, it wouldn't suggest alternatives to explore. Besides, when I play a game, I usually start out stressed, in order to releive that stress. You wouldn't want your initial state to be used. The adrenaline from playing is what actually gets me pumped.

I thought the same. But on the other hand, there's also a tendency that once people figure how to do something previously thought to be requiring fancy intelligence, people diss it with a but that's just...

I have a ph.d. friend (in psychology) who was working on a pattern recognition problem. Basically show people some patterns, scan their brain to see how they react, then do the same while keeping the patterns secret to the researchers and try to figure out which patterns people are looking at. He ended h

Agreed. If a task can be partially automated then it should be partially automated all the time, except then a user wants finer control. There is no benefit to having the user do more work that could otherwise be automated, no matter the users mental state.

They are offloading multi-threading, multiple robots in a maze doing the same task.

They are not offloading multi-tasking, like I'm currently simultaneously thinking about:1)/.2) a really slow data importer I should be fixing, but my brain needs to decompress to unconsciously determine the solution.3) pr0n, of course.

Computer: It appears you have an erection. Would you like some porn?
Human: I have only 8 more minutes before Wapner, make it quick.
Computer: I will provide you with the top 3 most downloaded clips of the day.
Human: Sure.
Computer: No increase in breathing or heartrate detected, switching to kink mode:
Computer: Kink mode activated.
Human: Umm...
Computer: Response noted. Increasing blood supply to right forearm.

Not to pick nits, but offloading functions to a computer does nothing to boost brain power. Brain power remains constant in this scenario. However, the productivity and ability of the individual is enhanced, but technology has always done that.

Now, over time, the infrared waves of the fNIR scanner will bake the brain and thus the computer control will take over all tasks over time and the humans will no longer be needed, nor mentally active.

Sounds useless and contrived to me. It detects high "brain cpu" load for a specific task and then takes over controlling the robots. The computer might as well take over most control of the robots in the first place, since it HAS ALREADY BEEN PROGRAMMED to be able to do that!

If you really want computers to augment humans,once you have a wearable computer+sensors that are sufficiently advanced you can have them do the following:1) Continuous video+audio recording in high res of past X minutes, and low res for longer periods. This way you don't have to miss stuff - you can tell the computer to switch to high res till further notice (the past X minutes would already be in high res) and then save it. Eidetic memory for the masses!2) Continuous background image recognition (look for faces or objects - military version = gun muzzle detection, vehicle detection, anti-camouflage )3) Continuous background audio recognition (voice etc[1]).4) GPS+ map + compass direction feedback.5) Work with "area/location computers" (so that you can more easily control/access location specific stuff - lights, jukebox, climate control, menus, ordering systems).6) Many more stuff - see below too.

If brain computer interfaces become safe, reliable and good, you could use stuff like "thought macros". For example a fancy computer program would let me link certain thought patterns with certain actions or objects.

That way I can do: [start command][recall object]<some thought pattern>[go][end]. And then the computer recalls the relevant object which could be a video, photo, sound, file or whatever.

I can also do [start command][recall previous][go][send to]<thought pattern of friend>[go][end]. Or get the computer to help calculate stuff, search databases. Or even do "rain man" counting (you could get the computer to highlight/mark the objects it is counting so that you can countercheck that it is counting correctly - humans are OK at detecting if something should be highlighted by the computer and isn't - counting large numbers of stuff fast isn't our forte ).

Thought patterns in square brackets are commands. Though patterns in angle brackets are various thought patterns you choose to associate with a person or item.

Someone smart can probably work out the details and improve on the idea - I hope someone does soon - I'm getting old waiting for the future to arrive. Put it all together you'd have humans with eidetic memory, telepathy, telekinesis, and other super/magical powers. The technology is already mostly there - we've already got some sort of telepathy with mobile phones etc. Heck in the 1990s I was hoping wearable computing would take off and we'd already have this "magic" by now.

The main hindrance to progress I see would be copyright and patent law. You'd be crippled by DRM and you wouldn't be able to walk into a cinema without all that stuff being forced off.

[1]Military versions could also do sniper location assistance from "crack-thump", possibly more accurate if sharing data from teammates - assuming all clocks are high res and synchronized - and teammate positions are known accurately (could be possible with UWB).

If you really want computers to augment humans,once you have a wearable computer+sensors that are sufficiently advanced you can have them do the following:1) Continuous video+audio recording in high res of past X minutes, and low res for longer periods. This way you don't have to miss stuff - you can tell the computer to switch to high res till further notice (the past X minutes would already be in high res) and then save it. Eidetic memory for the masses!2) Continuous background image recognition (look for faces or objects - military version = gun muzzle detection, vehicle detection, anti-camouflage )3) Continuous background audio recognition (voice etc[1]).4) GPS+ map + compass direction feedback.5) Work with "area/location computers" (so that you can more easily control/access location specific stuff - lights, jukebox, climate control, menus, ordering systems).6) Many more stuff - see below too.

It's a great 5-book sci-fi series in which these sorts of brain/computer interface devices are quite commonplace. Artificial eidetic memory, command codes for database access, environmental controls, communication, memory storage, etc. It's very well written: if you haven't read it already I suggest giving it a try!

Nope haven't read about it. Thing is I'm more interested in using something like it than reading about it. As I said I've been waiting for such tech since the 1990s. And that's like 20 years already.

It wasn't even a great leap back then- quite obvious actually. In the 1990s there was decent progress into brain computer interfaces for animals. Mobile phones were around already, and there were even wearable computers. And the WWW too. Put it all together with a super PDA UI.

Video games and toy robots aside, I can't think of any particular situation where this would provide a benevolent use, but I can imagine endless possible scenarios in which it could be used for malevolent purposes... Come to think of it, the example of a "Xbox... detect[ing] that you're in the mood for fighting games, and chang[ing] its splash screen accordingly" kind of exemplifies my point, since the reason it would react in such a way would be for marketing and advertising purpose

It's a bit misleading to call fNIR a "poor-mans" fMRI. They are very different beasts that address different problems. NIR sits somewhere in-between EEG and fMRI. It's faster than fMRI (but not as fast as EEG) and has better spacial resolution than EEG (but not as good as fMRI). The real weakness of NIR is that it can only measure a few centimeters into the brain. But at least you don't need to sit in a claustrophobic magnet.

MRI was invented in the building I am currently in. The NMR spectroscopist, and the IR spectroscopist not fifty feet from where I am sitting both just had massive heart attacks when that sentence was written.